What I love most about the February Swirlydoos kit is its versatility. I've done heritage pages and bright mixed media pages all from the same kit!

This layout shows a picture of my husband's grandfather and what was written on the back of the photo was a door to the past. His grandfather was born in NYC and when he was 11 years old he was put on the Orphan Train and traveled to Kansas where he was taken in by a family and then in 1907 he was in Oklahoma when it became a state. He ended up in Illinois where he married and raised his family.

I read a novel about the Orphan Trains a year or two ago, so I was just fascinated to find that my husband's grandfather was actually part of that history. The Orphan Trains operated from 1853 through the early 1900's placing homeless and neglected children from the slums of NYC with families to the west where they would be another pair of hands to help with life on the farm. More information on the Orphan Trains here.

I kept this simple, I wanted to focus on the photo and the writing from the back of the photo.

I used the Kaisercraft black roses from the kit but I misted them with Lindy's Kiwi Glitz Spritz and Shimmerz Shimmeringz Goldie Lox. The effect of both of these mists is to just add sparkle and is perfect for application on dark colors. Then I dabbed gold paint on the edges of those as well as the Petaloo flowers from the kit.

I used Stampendous aged gold embossing powder of the chipboard title.

This was a fun project. I took a sheet of white cardstock and layered it in with the Kaisercraft Blue Bay papers from the kit. I used Shimmerz TextureZ patina molding paste to do some stenciling on the right side and white paste from the kit on the left side. At this point I had used every single flower from the main and the add on kits so I dipped into my stash and used these Prima pink flowers that I got from the store. The tiny blue roses are some that have been in my stash forever. The white frames are from a previous kit.

I also did this layout for the challenge Rae is hosting to use something old - the mask and patina masking paste is at least 2 years old, something new - everything from the kit, something borrowed - chicken wire, something blue - the papers and roses. Fun challenge Rae!

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